Swim with stingrays and party with pirates: What to do in the Cayman Islands

FROM horseback riding along the beach to stunning wreck sites to dive amongst, we discover a colourful Caribbean getaway…

SUNKISSED: Tourists flock to the Cayman islands for sun sand and stingrays [PH]

Its rubbery wings massaged my chest as I stood waist deep in water and gazed into those otherworldly eyes. I’m swimming with stingrays on the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman, a UK overseas territory renowned as a tax haven.

Famous for their deadly sting from a poisonous barb in their tail, swimming with these giant fish writhing around your ankles might have seemed rather foolhardy. Yet they couldn’t have been more gentle.

Crouching down with outstretched arms I even enticed one into an embrace. Kissing a stingray is said to bring seven years’ good luck.

Every day tourists head out to Stingray City, a shallow sand bar, for a close encounter with these docile creatures. Once lured here by the cast-offs strewn by fisherman cleaning their catch, today the rays return to be fed by strictly regulated boats.

My base was the stylish, recently refurbished Westin Hotel, on Seven Mile Beach on the bustling Grand Cayman’s west coast. The largest of a group of three islands, it is 25 miles long and eight miles wide.

When Columbus discovered the islands he named them Las Tortugas, the Spanish for turtles, after seeing so many in the waters. Sir Francis Drake renamed them Las Caymanas, the Carib for alligators, after perhaps mistaking the resident iguanas for their larger, fiercer relatives.

Early settlers included pirates who used the islands as a base from which to attack galleons laden with treasure bound for Europe.

Their legacy is marked with an annual festival that coincided with my visit last November. Pirates’ Week is a time for swashbuckling merriment with late-night music, dancing and fireworks, all washed down with gallons of rum.

The festival kicks off in the capital, George Town, with an invasion re-enactment. Fireworks are thrown into the bay and explode with a huge splash to mimic cannon fire.

Then the “pirates” themselves land at the quay signalling the start of a procession of nautical-themed floats and steel bands. The islanders really know how to party. Though the real pirates left long ago, another group of invaders is still a menace today.

Green iguanas brought over as pets were released when they grew too big and now outnumber the native blues.

Keen to explore some of Grand Cayman’s less developed beaches, I joined a horseback tour along the forest-fringed Barkers Beach

The Blue Iguana Recovery Programme, on the quieter, eastern side of Grand Cayman, is leading a fight for survival by rearing adults from eggs to release back into the wild.

Head warden Alberto Estevanovich is on a mission to bring the species back from the verge of extinction. His love of these reptiles is infectious, and, together with a tour of the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, I left with a deeper understanding of the islands’ plants and animals.

Keen to explore some of Grand Cayman’s less developed beaches, I joined a horseback tour along the forest-fringed Barkers Beach and watched the kite surfers leaping above the waves.

We also took our steeds for a swim in the surf, removing the saddles before going in.

I realised that my horse had begun swimming as I struggled to keep my balance and nearly went hurtling into the water.

Grand Cayman is renowned for its wreck dives and I was lucky enough to sample one of its newest, the Kittiwake, a military vessel that recovered the Black Box from the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Scuppered in 2011 in clear shallow waters, it has become a magnet for divers.

The reefs are teeming with life and some of the brightest coral I have ever seen.

Shore diving is as popular here as boat diving with the inshore reefs equally spectacular. Even though the diving was amazing on Grand Cayman, locals recommended I experience the marine life at one of its sister islands where less boat traffic means the reefs are even more pristine.

As I took the half-hour flight on a 12-seater plane to Little Cayman I marvelled at its forest speckled with lakes framed by white sand swirling out into turquoise lagoons.

Only 10 miles long and a mile wide and with a community of around 100 (there’s a church, supermarket and one road around the island), Little Cayman couldn’t feel more different than its big sister.

Diving the Bloody Bay Wall, considered one of the top five dives in the world, was as spectacular as promised.

I spotted an enormous lobster, and spent much of my return to the surface in the company of a small, but cute, turtle. Big or small, when it comes to wildlife, there is plenty in the Cayman Islands.